Wolf Creek (8 page)

“So you think they’re Indians?” asked
Claude.

“With all that shooting, it’s a large bunch,
and whoever they’re chasing, they’re coming fast,” said Kelly. “As
soon as Shane’s here, he and I will join you on the roof.”

“What about the Adair brothers?” asked
Claude.

“I sent Aaron and Patrick up to the back
canyon to check the stone fence and steers,” answered Kelly. “I’m
afraid they’ll have to take their own chances. Now everyone, let’s
move!”

The three women, along with Claude and
Billy, disappeared into the house. Kelly watched the dust rising
from his brother’s approaching horse. There came another barrage of
shots, and far in the distance was more dust. It took some
studying, but the Irishman’s keen eyes finally made out a lone
rider in front, followed by dozens of other riders. All the mounted
men were pushing their horses hard, and from time to time, there
was a round of shots. Shane, hearing the commotion behind him,
pulled his mustang to a stop. Kelly became hopping mad.

“Come on, you fool!” he shouted to his
brother.

Then, once again Kelly pulled his pistol and
fired two quick shots, emptying the chambers of his Colt. Shane
spurred his mount and the horse came galloping towards the house.
It took several more minutes before he arrived and pulled the mount
to a halt in a flurry of dust and quickly dismounted. Holding
reins, he talked excitedly to his brother.

“What is it, Kelly?”

“Brother, can’t you see? It’s a war party
and they’re chasing some poor fellow…”

“What’ll I do with my horse?” asked
Shane.

“Take your rifle, drop the saddle and
blanket, and let it fend for itself. I have a hunch losing stock
will be the least of our troubles.”

Both Shane and Kelly watched the lone rider
furiously beat leather reins at the horse’s neck. White foam coated
the shoulders and chest of the mount and it was obvious the poor
animal was giving its very last. The rider veered his horse around
the lake and, arrow straight, made a dash for the ranch house.

“Here he comes!” said Shane.

“Brother,” said Kelly. “Suppose you take all
the weapons and ammunition you can find and head for the parapet.
I’ll need your covering fire to rescue that fellow. Hurry!”

Shane disappeared in the house, and Kelly
began to wish he hadn’t emptied his pistol. Here he was standing
before the house with no loaded weapon and what looked like a large
party of Kiowas advancing towards him.

Good thing this is a treeless land,
thought Kelly in the moments he watched the two galloping forces.
They can’t burn adobe and stone.

Kelly could make out the pursuers and they
were Kiowa, all right. Charley Blackfeather had told him their
manner of behavior and dress. The warriors in front had their hair
cut horizontally from the edge of the eyes to the back of the ears.
The big Irishman tried to count by tens and when he reached over
fifty, he knew they were in for a real fight. Before this was over,
Kelly was afraid there wouldn’t be a horse or a steer left on the
place, and they’d be lucky to escape with their lives.

Kelly frantically waved his handkerchief.
The man on the spent horse came galloping up in a cloud of dust and
then, just before reaching the porch, slid out of the saddle and
stumbled to the ground, seemingly stunned. The horse, panicked, ran
toward the corral. A stray bullet sent it crashing into the dust.
Kelly ran, stooped, picked up the rider, and flung him over his
back. Bullets were thudding in the hard clay dirt all around the
Irishman as he raced for the house. There was answering fire from
the high flat deck above and Kelly saw at least two Indians knocked
from their ponies, and a third slump down and fall from his
mount.

Once inside the building, Kelly, still
holding the man over his shoulder, closed and barred the heavy
wooden door. He ran for the stairs, easily carrying the added
weight as he climbed to the second floor of the house. When Kelly
reached the rooftop door, Sawni was there holding it open for him
to pass through. He lowered the injured man onto a long bench and
Sawni, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Barber began immediately to administer
to him. Shane flung his brother a loaded rifle, and without
hesitation, the three men and young Billy levered their Henrys as
fast as they could aim and fire.

In the first attack, there were many Kiowa
who would never see their southern lands again. There were Indians
and horses who screamed out their last breaths before dying. In a
few moments of heavy, accurate firing from the rooftop, the Kiowas
circled and backed off. Their first attack cost them dearly with
more than a dozen men and several horses killed. The remaining
forty Kiowa rode swiftly towards the wooden barn and took refuge
behind it.

“The brood mares are in there!” yelled
Shane. “The best of the lot!”

“And our best bulls are at the lake along
with many of the cows,” added Claude.

“Right now,” said Kelly. “We got our lives
to worry about. Thank goodness, brother, you’re good at building
with stone! They won’t be burning us out.”

“No,” responded Shane. “But they can burn or
knock down a door!”

“Not so long as we have ammunition!”
exclaimed Billy Barber.

“Right now, I’m thinking every stone we
carried was more than worth it,” said Kelly.

They heard a groan and the three men turned
to see Elizabeth and Helen kneeling over the prostate and wounded
stranger. Sawni was sitting down not far from the two women and the
injured man. She was taking .44-40’s from a box of bullets and
loading the front end of a Henry.

“How is he?” asked Kelly.

“He’s coming to now,” said Helen. “His arm
must have been hurt before because it was in a sling. He’s got a
nasty gash on his head and it looks like the wind was knocked out
of him. I didn’t find any broken bones.”

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” said the
prone man.

Helen removed a cloth from the man’s
forehead, and immediately blood gushed and ran down his face. She
returned the cloth and applied pressure.

“Elizabeth, take a strip of bandage and tie
this down until the bleeding stops.”

While the wound was being attended, Kelly
walked closer and stared down at the man.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“Quint Croy, Deputy Marshal, Wolf Creek,
under Sam Gardner. Say, mister, I know who you are. Seen you
several times in Wolf Creek, you’re that Irish feller who…”

“The name’s Kelly, and those three standing
behind me are my brother Shane, Claude and his son Billy. The women
bandaging you up are his daughter Miss Elizabeth, and his wife
Helen. This young lady loading rifles is named Sawni.”

“It’ll take time to get the names straight,”
replied Quint, “but I’m mighty obliged. If you hadn’t fired that
pistol of yours to tell me where you were located, I would have
been a goner for sure. And that horse of mine, he gave me
everything he had. He was my favorite. Had him some time and…”

“Had a buckskin named Sage once,” said
Kelly. “Know just how you feel.”

Several shots fired from the location of the
barn, bullets struck stone and ricocheted off. The men ducked lower
behind the stone parapet.

“Looks like it’s going to be a siege,” said
Claude. “Too bad about those two Irish boys you hired. No chance
a’tall in warning them.”

“They’ll hear the gunfire,” said Shane.

“If they come running,” said Billy, “they
won’t have us to protect them.”

“I’ll try to think of something,” said
Kelly. “Shane, you keep watching the barn. I suspect they’ll…”

“Kiowa won’t give up that easy,” said Sawni,
still loading weapons and now working on a cap and ball pistol.
“Uncle Charley—Charley Blackfeather—told me they never give up. If
you shoot, I’m thinking you better make every bullet count. Charley
says Kiowa got a big hate for the whites. He told me how they
torture…”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Sawni,”
interrupted Kelly. “But we built and planned for this. For right
now, as long as we keep our wits, they can’t touch us.”

“Yes, but those thieving Indians…no offense
Sawni…but those painted heathens can steal everything you men
worked for,” said Helen.

“We can always build up another cattle or
horse herd, but we can’t replace a life. We should all be grateful
me brother was such a good builder.”

“I didn’t do it all myself,” replied Shane.
“You all helped.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “We did carry an
awful lot of rocks and mud, didn’t we?”

Another rifle fired, then another, and then
several at once. All of them could hear the bullets bounce
harmlessly off solid rock.

“How long do you think they’ll keep this
up?” asked Billy.

“I bet they’ve got less ammunition then we
do,” replied Quint. “They’ll think of some mischief, and they’ll
take everything that’s not tied down.”

They heard a horse’s shrill scream and
within moments the brood mares were pushed out into the corral by
several warriors. Parts of the fence were pulled down and both the
mares and riding horses were herded out onto the grassland and away
from the fight. Shane raised a rifle and fired at one of the
galloping Indians. He missed.

“Maybe later, we’ll get some of them back,”
said Kelly.

“Look over there,” said young Billy,
pointing with the end of his rifle.

Far off, near the lake, several warriors on
horseback began gathering and pushing cattle. Dust rose and it was
hard to see the cattle clearly. But it was obvious they were being
gathered and driven off the land.

“Sorry about that, folks,” said Deputy
Marshal Quint Croy, who had risen to his feet.

He was looking at the Indians driving a
ribbon of steers, bulls, and cows away from the lake.

“What do Indians want to do with cattle?”
asked young Billy.

“They eat just like us, boy,” replied his
father.

Shane, who had been standing guard with his
rifle since the Kiowa took shelter behind the barn, raised it and
fired. The others on the roof ducked lower and came to the wall to
look out through a shooting port.

“What did you see, brother?” asked
Kelly.

“There was a Kiowa who was looking…”

A strange whirring noise caught the ears of
those on the roof and they looked toward the sound. A flight of
arrows, twenty or more, struck stone walls or tile floor. Everyone
ducked to avoid the flying missiles, but one arrow pierced Claude’s
lower right arm. He let out a painful grunt.

“Hurry!” ordered Kelly. “Everyone inside the
house.”

Helen Barber helped her husband through the
door. Elizabeth, Sawni, Billy, and Shane followed. Kelly held onto
the door and then another barrage of arrows appeared high against
the azure sky, completed their arch, and began to fall. The
peculiar noise increased and then feathered arrows dipped, their
steel tips shattered against stone and floor in a staccato cascade.
As they struck, Kelly closed the door and one arrow hit it with a
resounding thump. He opened the door and there was a Kiowa arrow
firmly embedded in the wood. The barrage of feathered and
steel-tipped objects lasted over ten minutes before it stopped.
From the lower floor of the house blasted several rifle shots, and
then there was silence.

Kelly, who had held onto the door, rushed
down the stairway. Shane was standing with his rifle at an open
window.

“Two of those painted lads tried to come at
the front door with one of our axes from the barn,” said Shane. “I
persuaded them not to.”

“Best you stay here and watch,” replied
Kelly. “I’ll take Billy and guard on top.”

Before going back up the stairs, carrying
his loaded Henry, Kelly entered the bedroom of his partner. Claude
was propped up on the bed, and Sawni, Elizabeth, and Helen were
attending his wound. The arrow had been removed and there was a pan
of bright red water.

“How is he?” asked Kelly.

“I can talk,” said Claude. “Give me a
minute, and I’ll join you and Billy.”

“I was able to get the point out by pushing
the arrow through,” said Sawni. “It struck no bone but we are
having trouble stopping the bleeding.”

“My husband is going nowhere until it does,”
said Helen.

“Father is almost as stubborn as you,” added
Elizabeth.

“You women,” replied Claude Barber. “You’d
think I was wounded in the chest, or someplace serious. Kelly, give
it a few minutes and I’ll join you up top, just liked you
planned.”

The Irishman found Billy on the roof,
holding his Henry and watching the grounds surrounding the house.
He concentrated most of his attention on the barn where the Kiowa
were hiding.

“How’s father?” asked the boy.

“Looks like the women have him in hand.
They’ve got some bleeding to stop, but he’s tough. He’ll be
fine.”

“Sawni is good at such things. She’ll…”

“I’m not worried, lad.”

“Good. What do you think they will do next?”
asked the youth, pointing at the barn with the barrel of his
rifle.

“They can’t get in the house without
breaking the shutters and a window, or one of the doors. We made
this place pretty sturdy and as long as we stay alert, they’ll have
no chance.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Billy. “But
what about Aaron and Patrick? Who will…”

“They’ll have to take their chances,”
replied Kelly. “Let’s hope they’re smart enough to stay
hidden.”

“But if they heard the rifle shots…”

“If they come to help, it’ll be bad. I have
no answer for…”

“Aaron was teaching me to play guitar, and
Patrick had this song he wanted me to learn.”

“Aye, those Irish lads have the gift of
music. I like those boys, too, Billy. We’ll just have to wait and
see.”

Through the next hour there was quiet. The
Kiowa warriors in the distance had disappeared with the stock and
there wasn’t one horse in the corral and no cattle to be seen
anywhere over the grassland or near the lake. Kelly looked at his
watch and it was one o’clock when they heard distant gun fire.
Billy looked to the older man for an answer, and the Irishman
walked to the stone parapet and listened.